Contents

Character

Purgatory is much like the Westminster and The Meat Quarter neighborhoods to the south in that it is much less "refined" than adjacent central Algonquin neighborhoods, but is in the process of gentrification. Unlike Westminster and The Meat Quarter, Purgatory appears to have always been intended to be used mainly for residential and commercial purposes, so its primary architecture consists of towering skyscrapers and luxury apartment complexes along its Frankfort Avenue corridor. Several-story tenements are the main fare in central Purgatory, along with a few townhouses dotted throughout. Along its western edge, Purgatory is dominated by a parking complex which stretches north from Westminster, west of Union Drive West.

At one point in time, Purgatory was the central place of operations for the Irish Mob, although their influence has waned considerably, possibly as the result of the gentrification of the neighborhood. It remains one of the less affluent neighborhoods in Algonquin, though less so than Westminster and The Meat Quarter.

Patrick McReary claims that the neighborhood is called Purgatory because the citizens were so afraid of the Irish Mob that people rarely left their homes, though his brothers dismiss this. Gordon Sargent makes fun of this statement by replying with, "It's called Purgatory because the McRearys' stories were so fuckin' boring. Listening to them was like being in Purgatory!"

Places of interest

Purgatory is relatively free of any major landmarks and public attractions, but there are still a few places of interest which might appeal to local Algonquin residents. There is an Auto Limbo automobile services shop which houses a spray shop at the intersection of West Way and Lorimar Street. A short distance north is a car wash, at the intersection of West Way and Hell Gate. Lucky Winkles, a bar, is located at the intersection of Galveston Avenue and Hell Gate. The Bahama Mamas nightclub is located at the intersection of Lorimar Street and Frankfort Avenue, at the neighborhood's border with Star Junction and Westminster.

At the corner of Nickel Street and Frankfort Avenue in northeast Purgatory lies a spoof of the Time Warner Center, overlooking Middle Park. The Time Warner Center is depicted only partially, with just one of its two towers present and its base half the length of that of the real-life building.

Influences

Purgatory appears to be the GTA analogue of the real-life neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, a place once populated primarily by working-class Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans as well as a center of the real-life Irish mob in New York City. Indeed, Hell's Kitchen influence on the neighborhood is evident in the name (the concepts of Hell and Purgatory being part of several religious beliefs), architecture (Hell's Kitchen features many of the same townhouses and tenements present in Purgatory), and location (Hell's Kitchen is located directly west of Times Square, much as Purgatory is west of Star Junction).

Trivia

In the parking center in the far west of Purgatory, there is a building with a "window" that wasn't programmed correctly, so it is a borderless box on the wall giving a view inside a building, but all that is seen is the invisible geometry of the opposing side.